Parashat Vayikra

by Rabbi Bob Freedman

The morning liturgy in our prayerbook includes a section for study of the laws of offerings. The rationale for this comes from Taanit 27b where the rabbis envision Abraham foreseeing a time to come when worship by means of offerings will no longer be possible. He asks God, “What will happen to Israel when the Temple no longer exists?” God replies, “I have already long ago provided for them in the Torah the order of sacrifices. Whenever they read it I will deem it as if they had offered them before me and I will grant them pardon for all their iniquities.” At the end of a section discussing prayer in the Tur (Orah Hayyim, chapter 2), Yaakov bar Asher notes that indeed it has come to pass as Abraham foretold and offers a verse from Hosea (14:3) as a solution, “We will offer in place of Read More >

By ahsilver|2013-03-17T13:54:01-04:00March 17, 2013|

Parashat Va-Yakhel-Pekudei Parashat Ha-Hodesh

by Rabbi Len Levin

Sacred Space and Sacred Time:

This week we take out two Sifrei Torah. In the first we complete the book of Exodus, especially the long sequence of Chapters 25-40 which is devoted to the construction of the Tabernacle and all its appurtenances. In the second we begin the narrative of the Exodus from Egypt, which we will continue and conclude during the upcoming holiday of Passover. The one deals with sacred space, the other with sacred time.

In his book The Sabbath, Abraham Joshua Heschel said that whereas the ancient pagans glorified and sanctified space, Judaism sanctifies time. He exemplified this thesis by elaborating on how the Sabbath, that most distinctive creation of the Jewish spirit, creates a “palace in time,” in which we feel transported and uniquely close to God.

Heschel was only partly right. Yes, there is something distinctive about the Jewish relation to time, and much of what is uniquely Read More >

By Rabbi Len Levin|2013-03-08T14:07:46-05:00March 8, 2013|

Parashat Ki Tissa – Shabbat Parah

By Rabbi Dorit Edut

Cows and Kashering for Pesah

Passover, or Pesah, marks a half-way point in our Jewish calendar. Though it comes in the first month of the Jewish year, Nissan, it is actually six months since Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. During this month before Passover, we mark almost each Shabbat with special preparations for this important holiday. For example, this week is Shabbat Parah when we read an additional portion about the very unusual ritual of the red heifer, the cow that the High Priest sacrificed and whose ashes were then used to purify those made impure via contact with a corpse. There have been efforts made to understand the deeper meaning of this ritual. For example, in Midrash Tanhuma (Hukat, 8) it says:

“A young woman’s child once dirtied the royal palace. The king said: ‘Let his mother come and clean up her child’s mess.’ By the same token, God says Read More >

By ahsilver|2013-02-28T10:39:36-05:00February 28, 2013|

Purim

By Rabba Kaya Stern-Kaufman

Mitzvah gedolah l’hiyot b’simhah tamid-It is a great mitzvah to always be happy.
-R. Nachman of Bratslav

The light is ascending, spring approaches, the season of ge’ulah, of redemption, is upon us and therefore Joy is required! The essence of the celebration of Purim is Joy. The month of Adar is mentioned in the Talmud with the statement: mi’she’nikhnas Adar marbin b’simhah (Ta’anit: 29a)- When the month of Adar begins, one should increase joy. This is contrasted with a previous statement that when the month of Av begins, we should decrease our joy.

The month of Av brings the fast day of Tisha b’Av in which the destruction of both Temples is memorialized. It is a period of mourning over the exile of the Jewish people and subsequent experiences of persecution through the ages. In contrast, Adar presents an alternate reality- one of ge’ulah- redemption in the face of near destruction. Rashi Read More >

By ahsilver|2013-02-21T12:37:42-05:00February 21, 2013|

Parashat Toldot

By Rabbi Isaac Mann

One of the most popular derashot (homiletical interpretations) that rabbis make use of when delivering sermons on the Sabbath of Terumah is one that explains the reason that the Torah forbids the removal from the Aron (the Ark) of the staves that were used to carry it. The other vessels of the Mishkan (the Tabernacle) described in this week’s parashah, such as the Shulhan (the Table) and the Mizbei’ah (the Altar), also had staves that were inserted through the rings attached to the vessels to allow easy transport from place to place. But unlike the Aron, for which the Torah says (Ex. 25:15), “The staves shall be in the rings of the Ark; they shall not be taken from it,” no such prohibition is stated for the other vessels. Indeed, Maimonides lists this prohibition as one of the 613 commandments of the Torah (mitzvah 313).

The darshanim (homileticians) observe that the Read More >

By Rabbi Isaac Mann|2013-02-14T18:02:32-05:00February 14, 2013|

Parashat Mishpatim

By Rabbi Judith Edelstein

In this week’s parashah, Mishpatim, “Laws,” we have plummeted from the terse, but exalted proclamation of the Ten Commandments in last week’s reading, Yitro, to the nitty gritty details of everyday life. This section, often referred to as the “Book of the Covenant,” although not exhaustive, as it does not cover every aspect of existence, prescribes rules for a vast range of moral, criminal and civil matters. They range from the treatment of slaves and their families, murder, theft and assault, to behavior towards the stranger and religious observance of the festivals.

What is amazing is that in the opening verse God instructs Moses to speak to all the people in an inclusive manner, “These are the rules that you shall set before them.” (Exodus 21:1) This sets us up with high expectations for what is to follow. None of the other law collections from the Ancient Near East begins Read More >

By ahsilver|2013-02-06T11:43:54-05:00February 6, 2013|

Parashat Yitro

By Rabbi Robert Freedman

The account in Exodus of the revelation at Sinai emphasizes physical boundaries. “YHVH said to Moses, ‘I will come to you in a thick cloud.'” (Exodus 19:9). “You shall set bounds for the people round about, saying, ‘Beware of going up the mountain or touching the border of it. Whoever touches the mountain will be put to death.'” (19:12) “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go down, warn the people not to break through to the Lord to gaze, lest many of them perish.'” (19:21)

These boundaries are similar to those set up by the priesthood following the rebellion of Korah and the destruction of his followers. (Numbers 17:27-18:7) They kept all but the ordained priests from coming close to the holiest part of the sanctuary and prevented any non-anointed person from performing the rites of the temple cult. There, as here, the penalty for crossing the boundary was death. At Read More >

By ahsilver|2013-01-31T10:29:38-05:00January 31, 2013|

Parashat Beshalah and Tu Bish’vat

By Rabbi Len Levin

David Ben Gurion said that whoever does not believe in miracles is not a realist. He may have had in mind the day in 1948 that the fate of Jerusalem depended on negotiation of a cease-fire before the supply of food and water would run out, or a thousand other improbable events on which the life of modern Israel depended.

“God enacted a condition with the Sea, at the time of creation, that it should split upon the arrival of the Israelites.” (Genesis Rabbah, 5:5) The author of this rabbinic saying was cognizant of the Stoic doctrine of natural law-a precursor of our modern scientific view of the orderliness of the physical world-and asserted that if miracles occur, they are part of the fabric of natural causality, not a deviation from it. God works through nature.

In the daily prayer Modim, we thank God for the miracles and wonders that are with us every Read More >

By Rabbi Len Levin|2013-01-29T10:46:24-05:00January 29, 2013|

Parashat Bo

By Rabbi Dorit Edut

The recent tragedy of the cold-blooded shooting of twenty-six young children and four of their adult staff at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut shocked our entire nation. After ungluing ourselves from the media reports, some of us looked for spiritual and practical ways to express our sorrow and identification with the victims’ families – leading or attending worship services, sending items to help the survivors, signing petitions against gun violence and writing to our congressmen, etc. But I would venture to say that the most prevalent reaction was to contact our children, grandchildren, children of friends and neighbors to make sure they were safe, to offer them an extra hug or bit of loving advice, and probably to whisper a little prayer asking for God’s continued protection of these precious ones. Can we make sense of this and other such violent events that have left too many Read More >

By ahsilver|2013-01-17T13:46:41-05:00January 17, 2013|

Parashat Va’eira

By Rabbi Kaya Stern-Kaufman

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezek. 36:26)

In Parashat Va’eira the Torah presents Pharaoh’s response to the successive plagues meted out by God. Seven times we read the refrain that Pharaoh’s heart was either “strengthened” or “hardened” after each plague. At times the phrase “v’lo shama aleihem – and he did not listen to them” is added to the ‘stiffening of the heart’ phrase. Pharaoh is described repeatedly as one with an iron will, or as the Torah implies, an iron heart. He excels at shutting himself off from the suffering of others and the word of God. He appears to cultivate this skill to exquisite proportions despite the plagues, the suffering of his own people and the destruction of Read More >

By ahsilver|2013-01-17T11:46:00-05:00January 17, 2013|

All shall unite to do God's will with an open heart.

All shall unite to do God's will with an open heart.

Programs of Study

Learn more about…

Programs of Study

Learn more about…

Parashat Vayikra

ABOUT

LIBRARY

JOIN US

PROGRAMS OF STUDY